The McGurks Bar Bombing

In the early evening of Saturday 4th December 1971, British extremists of the Ulster Volunteer Force planted a no-warning bomb on the doorstep of a family-run bar in north Belfast. They killed 15 men, women and children – the country’s most devastating massacre of civilians since the Nazi Blitz. Nevertheless, the innocent victims were to become the forgotten victims of a dirty war. British Government, military and RUC police sources immediately stated that the bombing was an IRA “own-goal” even though the full weight of evidence, including a witness who saw the bomb being planted, proved otherwise. As the families buried their loved ones, the State drip-fed black propaganda into the intelligence stream and the media. Since then the families have fought tirelessly and constitutionally to clear their names. For many, the McGurk’s Bar Massacre was a turning point in the conflict.

CIARÁN MacAIRT’s grandmother, Kitty Irvine, was one of those murdered in the bar that night. His meticulous research over many years has uncovered historic documents, hidden in archives, which lay bare collusion and cover-up by the State. It is a paper trail that goes to the highest levels of the Government, police and military. His research has featured in many TV and radio programmes and in 2011 he presented his testimony to the powerful US Helsinki Commission on Capitol Hill, Washington DC.